Mariateresa Fiocca, Carlo Jean

Economia del terrorismo e dell'antiterrorismo

216

Settembre-Dicembre 2007

Anno LXXII    n. 3

Summary -  In the past the economic consequences of the terrorism were considered only as a by-product of that particular form of violent conflict. It was focused – and in effect it still is – on the enlargement of the audience and the intensity of terror, because through it the terrorism expects to attain its political goals. The vulnerability of the modern societies and of the global economy, as well as the greater destruction power of the modern technologies and the amplification effect of the media of the information society, have raised the attention of both the terrorists and the States on the economic consequences of this kind of violent conflict. Bin Laden has furthermore envisaged the possibility to win an economic war of attrition against the Western economy. In effect, the conventional terrorism doesn’t have such a power. The losses and damages are irrelevant in relation to the population and the wealth of nations. Only with the use of weapons of mass destruction (and disruption!) the terrorism could reach that potentiality.Anyway, the economic consequences of the modern transnational terrorism are far from irrelevant. They are multifarious in nature and timing. As far as their nature is concerned, a difference must be made from the losses and damages, from the direct effects and the indirect ones, from the damages of the terrorist actions and those produced by the prevention and security measures, from the material damages and those linked by the “fear economy”, and , last but not least, from those of the “occasional terrorism” (september 11th) and those of the “recurrent” one (IRA, ETA, Intifada, etc.), that is of the terrorist campaigns.As far as the time of damages is concerned the immediate, short and long term impacts have to be considered. The actual impacts on the economy, the society and the politics depend on the one side on the existence of a “security culture” and on the other side on the emergency institutional communication. This latter could either hinder or expand the damages,. fear and panic, both through the people and areas involved in a terrorist attack and outside.